Systems have been developed that recognize paths of customers who move in stores, such as supermarkets, convenience stores, etc. Conventionally, such systems include those that use camera images to recognize flow lines of customers (moving objects), those that use radio tags to recognize flow lines, and those that uses multi-laser scanners for the flow line recognition.
The flow line recognition system using camera images requires many cameras in order to cover a monitoring area entirely. Therefore, the number of cameras increases if the monitoring area becomes wider. If the cameras increase, the following problems occur.
(1) The capacity of storage devices for recording captured image data is inevitably large.
(2) The cameras require complicated control.
(3) The maintenance of the cameras becomes more costly.
Thus, the flow line recognition system using camera images is unsuitable for stores with a large sales floor space.
Since the flow line recognition system using radio tags does not use image data, it can comprise a small storage device. In order to accurately detect the positions of customers as moving objects, however, the number of radio tag readers needs to be increased. If the tag readers increase, radio-wave interference is caused between them, so that data on the radio tags cannot be read. Thus, the number of radio tag readers that can be installed within the monitoring area is physically limited. Consequently, the accuracy of this system is lower than that of the system that uses camera images.
According to this system, moreover, the radio tags need to be carried by the customers. To this end, a complicated operation is required such that, for example, one radio tag is affixed to each shopping cart.
According to the flow line recognition system using multi-laser scanners, on the other hand, it is unnecessary for anything to be carried by customers. However, this system detects customers (moving objects) by scanning with laser lights by means of the laser scanners. If the customers overlap one another in the direction of emission of the laser lights, those on the far side cannot be detected, although those on the near side can. Consequently, data having so far been used to track the far-side customers will disappear. Thus, this system is unsuitable for use in a busy monitoring area.